What's the most important thing in a Jane Austen novel? Some might say, often complainingly, 'oh it's all about getting married. ' And so it is, of course.
She writes comedies. Comedies end in marriage. She writes about a society in which, for many people, for many young women, getting married is the most important thing and of course, quite a few of her heroines, their chance of happiness in life seems to be premised on their chance of marriage, their chances of marriage.
But, of course, within that she does wonderful things within the conventions that she knew and accepted as part of her social world. So, for instance, Sense and Sensibility is a novel which would have been impossible without certain strict conventions about getting engaged ,about proposals. Jane Austen is really interested in the business of making proposals and here's a nice hint to readers: why is it that almost all proposals in Jane Austen novels which are made indoors are unsuccessful and almost all proposals which are made out of doors are successful.
Tthink about that one. One rule in Jane Austen is that if a man proposes marriage as if he assumes the answer will be yes then the answer will be no. Men only seem to succeed in making proposals, certainly to the heroines of Jane Austen novels if they're properly diffident and unconfident.
Mr Darcy, of course, has to learn that lesson. But also there are these conventions about proposals and engagement which I think the first time reader can quite soon grasp. You don't have to read background books to get these.
Two conventions in particular are important. First: the man proposes. The woman can only decline.
Henry Tilney in Northanger Abby says to Catherine Morland, whom of course he will eventually marry, that 'It's the same in marriage as in dancing' in Jane Austen. The man asks, the woman can only say yes or no. So in Sense and Sensibility this convention is hugely important because women have to wait to be asked.
What's Edward Ferrars up to? Elinor doesn't know. He seems to be interested in her, but he never asks, or he does eventually, but for much of the novel he's not asking.
Has Willoughby asked Marianne? He seems to behave as if he loves her but has he asked her? And the second convention, equally important in Sense and Sensibility, is that if a man asks a woman to marry him and she agrees, even if nobody else knows about it, he is bound to honour that commitment and he's actually legally bound - it's breach of promise if he tries to slip out of this commitment.
So that sort of modern word 'commitment', is a man committed to a relationship? is really hard and fast in the world of Jane Austen and of course, the plot of Sense and Sensibility relies on the fact that Edward Ferrars has an engagement which he now regrets, which he can't weasel out of because he's a gentleman. But the wonderful thing, I think, about Austen though the reason you know she's so much in control of her material, is that these conventions become intelligible in the course of the novel.
I don't think you need acres of explanation to realise, pretty quickly, when you read Sense and Sensibility, what's going on.
